2 INVESTIGATIONS OF FEMALE MODESTY IN ACHIEVEMENT SITUATIONS

Two experiments examined motivations underlying the common finding tha t females present themselves more modestly than males in achievement s ituations. In Study 1, 388 first-year college students, primarily Euro pean-Americans, predicted their first semester grade point averages (G PAs) in one of 3 public and 2 private conditions, which varied the sal ience of modesty concerns and/or concerns about the others' feelings. In the public conditions combined, but not in the private conditions, women's predictions were lower than men's, although there were no gend er differences in actual GPA. The public condition in which the others ' feelings and modesty concerns were made salient accounted for this d ifference between men and women. In Study 2, 230 first-year college st udents predicted their first-semester GPAs in private, in public to a ''nonvulnerable'' other, or in public to a ''vulnerable'' other (someo ne who supposedly had earned a low GPA). Women's estimates were lower than men's in the latter condition only and lower than their estimates in the other conditions. These results suggest that relational motiva tions, rather than a simple lack of self-confidence or modesty alone, are a factor in gender differences in self-presentation of achievement .